Cooking-utensil.



A. SPBIRS. COOKING UTENSIL. APPLICATION FILED APR. 1, 1907.

Pafinted Dec. "21 1909.

ALEXANDER SPEIRS, 0F WESTBROOK, MAINE COOKING UTENSIL.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. '7. 1909.

Application filed April 1, 1907. Serial No. 365,656.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALnXANnnn Srnins, a citizen of the United States ofAmerica, and resident of Westbrook, county of (Jumberland, State ofMaine, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in (lookingUtensils, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to a cooking utensil adapted to be usedparticularly for cooking baked beans and other like articles of foodwhit'h require slow cooking and where the slow penetration of the heatfrom the outside to the inside of the dish is favorable to cooking theabove articles of food.

The class of utensils to which my invention particularly relates,comprises an open topped dish. with a tight fitting cover, both the dishand the cover being formed of a double thickness of sheet metal with aninsulating space between the outer and inner shell, this insulatingspace being filled with asbestos. I have found from experience inmanufacturing these dishes that there were numerous practicaldifficulties which I encountered and it is to the remedying of theseditiiculties and for the purpose of makmg the dIshes cheaply andsubstantially. that my present invention is designed'as will behereinafter [minted out.

I. illustrate my invention in the accompanying drawing in which- Figurel is a. part side elevation and part vertical. section through a.utensil constructed according to my invcl'ition, Fig. 2 a detail view ofthe flange of the cover to show the vent, Fig. i is a. section on :1: ofFig. 2

-anil Fig. ,4 .is a detail of the relief valve plate.

The. body of the utensil is made. up of a pair of open topped sheet.metal vessels A, and it preferably llaring upward or smaller at thebottom than at the top. They are. separated throughout the greater partof their extent. by an insulating space in which is placed av sheet. l)of asbestos extending around the sides and across the bottom. A. tighttitting cover (I closes the upper coil of the utensil.

()ne of the ditliculties experienced has been to secure the inner andouter vessels together in a. practical and neat manner so that theywould make a tight. joint: with each other thus preventing ater fromgetting between the two vessels. In order to securely lock the twovessels together, I finish the upper edge of the inner vessel B byinserting a wire 7) in the usual manner of finishing such edges,slipping over it: the outer vessel A whose upper edge is unlinishedand'drawn inward so as to lit closely on the"inner vessel just. belowthe. upper edge and innnediately below the wire 1/. A beading, orgrooving machine is now used to form an annular groove or bead u justbelow the upper edges where the two vessels come in contact, it beingunderstood that the bodies of the vessels are slightly separated to forman insulating space at. The effect: of forming this groove is tosecurelylock the two vessels together so that they cannot. be

separated with a joint which is practically water tight because neithervessel can bo moved vertically with relation to the other on account ofthdfactthat both'arc bent outward and then inward by the-action of thebeading or grooving machine. Another difliculty experienced was inholding the asbestos sheet 1) against the sides of the vessels and thisI now provide for by forming one or more grooves 'or beads (i in theouter dish and after the sheet oti asbestos is laid on and before theinner vessel is inserted, I press a metal ring f into the asl'icstosopposite each groove. forcing the asbestos into the groove andincidentally leaving an air space between the inner vessel and theasbestos sheet.

It is important in these dishes to have a tight fitting cover althoughthere should be a small vent toprevent the accumulation of dangerouspressure inside. I form my cover of. a Hat disk 0, an annular rim orflange c on its lower side, outwardly flanged on its upper edge to fitagainst the under side of the disk. The rim 0 is held to the disk by aconvex topplatc c" which turns down over the edge of the disk 0 and theupper flanged edges of the rim.

Instead of forming my joint at the wired edge of the. inner vessel as isusual, I form it where the lower plain edge of the rim 'eomes in contactwith the flaring inner'surface of the inner vessel, the flexible edge ofthe. rim tending to conform to any irregularity in theiuner vessel. Therim is made wide enough so that the edge of the cover will come somedistance above the wire I).

The dish is vented by means of a vent hole/c formed in the side of therim where it. comes abovti the edge of the inner vessel and this y'enthole'is closed by a spring plate excess of water putting 0 which coversits outside, acting as a relief valve when the pressure becomesexcessive. The plate 0 is shown flange a which shuts in between the edgeof the plate 0 and the flange of the rim 0 and is thus held withoutrivets.

In using this utensil for baking beans the practice has been to coverthe beans with an in enough water so that the excess would Just aboutboil away during the time of cooking, leaving the beans with just enoughmoisture but not too much. By this method an 1 ebullition took placecontinually in the beans tending to break them up into pieces which wasnot desirable. To remedy this difiiculty, I form a false bottom in thebottom of the dish perforated so as to admit water but exclude the beansor other articles being cooked and ,forming a water chamber next to thebottom in which the excess of water is retained. As here shown, I placeon the bottom of the dish a convexperforated diaphragm e which may beeasily removed for the purpose of cleaning, etc. By this construction Iretain the surplus water at the bottom of the mass of beans and as itboils'away the steam passes as L-shaped with a.

'ber may be otherwise up through the beans cooking them thoroughlywithout breaking them. When the surplus moisture is all boiled out thebeans will have been cooked without being broken. It is evident thatthis diaphragm and chamformed than as here shown and that variations maybe made in other features shown Without departing from the s irit of myinvention.

I c aim The herein described cooking utensil consisting of a pair ofopen topped sheet metal vessels forming an inner and an outer vesselsaidvessels being secured together to leave a substantially steam tightinsulating space between them, an annular groove formed in the outervesselya sheet of insulating material'occupying and partially fillingsaid space and in contact with the outer vessel and a tightly fittingring pressing the asbestos outward into said groove.

Signed by me at Portland, this 18th day of March A. D., 1907.

ALEXANDER SPEIRS.

Witnesses: Y

S. \V. Ba'rus, ELEANOR W. DENNIS.

